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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27232381">How to Be</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Janekfan/pseuds/Janekfan'>Janekfan</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>TMA prompt fics [10]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Magnus Archives (Podcast)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Blood, Cutting, Gen, Hurt, Hurt/Comfort, Identity Issues, Jumpers, Self-Destruction, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, Self-Pity, Starvation, Tea</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 21:46:46</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,599</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27232381</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Janekfan/pseuds/Janekfan</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: Jon angst about his humanity or lacktherof? worrying about him not being good enough for+worthy of+safe for martin/general guilt/self hatred? before or after apocolypse idk maybe safe house maybe post change? maybe season 4 after coma? could end up being jmart h/c or just be jon sad time whatever works</p><p>After the coma, Jon isn't doing well at all.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>TMA prompt fics [10]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2082912</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>193</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>How to Be</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Please heed the tags. It's pretty dark, but not without light at the end of the tunnel.</p><p>This is right after the coma and Jon isn't doing so well.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>For everyone else it had already been six long months. </p><p>And for Jon. </p><p>Well. For Jon, it was just yesterday. </p><p>Sasha. </p><p>Gone.</p><p>Tim. </p><p>Gone. </p><p>Martin. </p><p>Gone. </p><p>Himself?</p><p>And wasn’t that the question of the day Jon thought as he dragged himself up the steps of the Magnus Institute. He didn’t have anything with him. He didn’t have anything left that he knew of. Just the Oyster card and set of clothes the hospital had been kind enough to give him as his own were thoroughly shredded in the explosion. Everything else was gone. </p><p>He should be gone. </p><p>He’s the <i>only</i> one who should be gone. </p><p>But he’s still here. </p><p>And they’re just. </p><p>Was he even allowed to grieve?</p><p>“<i>Jon</i>” Melanie’s sharp, irritated voice raked over his ill-fitting skin like claws and he lifted sore eyes in acknowledgment. </p><p>“Hm, y’yes?”</p><p>“Been calling your name. You up to your spooky monster shit already?” He winced, wishing the scratchy two-sizes too big tee shirt would swallow him the rest of the way. “Barely through the door and you can’t resist.” </p><p>“N’no. Was. Was thinking, s’all.” Rubbing his arm, trying desperately to feel something, Jon didn’t know if he was allowed to leave or not. If he moved would she be upset? If he stayed?</p><p>“Least keep to your office. Don’t want you...watchin’ me.” She shoved past him, knocking him against the wall, still unsteady on his feet, the effects from the statement earlier were wearing off, or whatever the supernatural equivalent was and he slipped like a shadow through the halls to his door to hide himself behind it. </p><p> </p><p>Things did not improve. He was always in the wrong, always a menace and he’d caught a glimpse of himself in the restroom mirrors a couple times, surprised at how thin and pathetic he looked. But they were afraid of him. He <i>Knew</i> it. Because the Eye gravitated to these heavenly tastes of fear like a starving man did to food. </p><p>So he kept to himself. </p><p>I’m sorry. </p><p>As days crept in and out, Jon tried to keep stock of what was different and the only thing he could conclude after his careful analysis and study was that he. Jonathan Sims. Was now something less than human. </p><p>Less than. </p><p>That made sense. That was okay. He’d always been better off alone because when he was alone he couldn’t hurt people and all he seemed to <i>do</i> was <i>hurt</i> people.</p><p>Wasn’t that true? </p><p>
  <i>Georgie Sasha Tim Martin Daisy Georgie Sasha Tim Martin DaisyGeorgieSashaTimMartinDaisy</i>
</p><p>What was the point of learning that hard-won lesson if he had no one left? </p><p>I’m sorry. </p><p>And there was no way to go back. He’d caused it. Been causing it since he was a child, alienating, precocious, and so unlikable. </p><p>And there was no way for him to fix it. Not when he was in so deep. Not when he was <i>addicted</i> to these, these tales of dread and panic and horror and pain and death and terror and <i>loss</i>. Not when he had taken from those that he haunted and hunted through nightmare and dream. Took what they had and made it his, feeding, feeding, feeding like some <i>animal</i>. </p><p>But animals didn’t have a choice did they? </p><p>I’m sorry.</p><p>He’d already been judged and found wanting. Georgie was right. He should have died, or stayed in the coma, or anything other than turning into whatever he was now. Something inhuman, un-human. </p><p>Un-made. </p><p>Twisted. </p><p>
  <i>I’m sorry.</i>
</p><p>Pity there was no one left who would accept his worthless apologies. Not from whatever he was now. </p><p> </p><p>Jon was barely in control, not in control. Not really. Exhausted and hungry and lonely, lonely, lonely. He decided to take control back, just a little, whatever he could because to be human was to stay in control.</p><p>And he takes it. </p><p>In the only way he can think how.</p><p>Blood wells up from scratches Jon gouges into his arms, from beneath the blades of dull knives and keen razors, deep and dark and dangerous if he were human. But he wasn’t. He couldn’t harm himself <i>enough</i> physically, healing too fast to really feel it like he wanted to feel it and the marks never stayed long enough. Didn’t, didn’t bleed long enough, fast enough, never enough.</p><p>There’s no one left to notice the rust and ruby lining the bin so Jon doesn’t bother putting effort into cleaning up evidence. It’s around him in the florid streaks crossing the blotter, the cardinal fingerprints on old envelopes, the scarlet trails of irregular constellations mapped beneath his chair. </p><p>The answer to his problem became clear soon after. The statements. Addicted to them, it wasn’t until Basira pointed out that he should stop that he realized the easiest way to hurt was to deny himself. And they wanted him to stop. They want him to <i>hurt</i> and he should hurt. It’s fine, it’s okay, it’s what he’s been looking for. </p><p>Maybe when they thought he’d hurt enough, they would forgive him. </p><p>The pain was good. Every time he denied the Eye was good. Better than, it was intoxicating. The smallest act of rebellion and he <i>revelled</i> in it. Knowing he was weak, that he couldn’t be used for whatever purpose he’d been created for while he was like this, filled him with a perverse hope. </p><p>Restless, Jon retraced his steps through the Archives, trying to avoid Basira and Melanie where he could though they didn’t do anything more than ignore him unless he had a purpose or interrogate him about leaving, finding a victim. Compelling them against their will.</p><p> </p><p>“You look shite, Jon.” He avoided their eyes, stared at their feet and watched them fade in and out, as he swayed back and forth, and he knew they were sneering because he could hear it in their voice. “Proof enough, I suppose.” Melanie lifted his face with a gentle finger placed under his chin. “Haven’t been galavanting in people’s dreams?” Back bowing under the weight of her scrutinizing stare, Jon did his best to stand straight. Removing the influence of the Slaughter didn’t make her undivided attention any easier to stomach and he put effort into quelling the ever present shiver thrumming through his bones, playing his sinews like strings. </p><p>“Uh, n’no. I don’t leave much. Or at all.” </p><p>“Mm.” </p><p>“Melanie?” Narrowed eyes stared through him, followed the quick rush through the highways of his veins. She knew where to strike to do the most damage. </p><p>Jon Knew it wouldn’t stick if she tried. </p><p> </p><p>He was sure he’d seen him come this way. Martin. Whom he missed more than he ever thought one could miss someone. And, really, what did he know of Martin? Other than how best to ridicule him? He’d done this, or at the very least pushed him toward it. A victim for the Lonely. For Peter Lukas to control and manipulate and Martin assured him he was fine. He was fine and Jon shouldn’t look for him anymore because it was making it harder, it was making it worse. And Jon could do that. Could do one thing to make it easier for Martin? </p><p>But when he saw him, pale and small and Martin should never seem so small, Jon abandoned all his promises. He’d never been good at keeping them anyway. Why start now? Dizzier than he thought, the first step almost sent him sprawling and he just managed to catch himself on the wall, resting against it long enough to lose him. He pushed off, caught himself again as the hall twisted around him, spiraling like Helen’s eyes when they burrowed into his own and he followed, stumbling, a body ricocheting from surface to surface; floor, window, door, battered and bruised where no one could see. Not like the scars and the timeline they’d scripted silver and hoary on translucent brown vellum. </p><p>Martin is not there. </p><p>Jon has arrived too late.</p><p>He was good at that.</p><p>The first sob cleaved him in two, the second carved his chest clean out. Empty. Painfully empty and worse than anything he’d done to himself thus far. There wasn’t room to breathe between, there wasn’t time or space and rather than cower in the open doorway Jon threw himself into the office, crashing to his knees and pressing his face into the wood of his neatly organized desk before he gathered the wherewithal to pull himself into the chair, nicking the jumper folded over the back of it before crumpling again. Soft against his cheek, the well worn wool comforted him enough that he gained tentative control over himself again. He spent the time there dazed between bouts of crying, gradually tugged into the deep and the dark, exhausted and guilty. </p><p>He’s visited by dreams instead of nightmares. A cool palm gently coaxing the blazing, feverish heat from his skin. Stroking back tangled curls from his damp face and murmuring gentle things, lovely things, that he had no right to take comfort from. Jon dreamt of being hushed, of tears swept away by mindful fingertips, of clinging to Martin’s cardigan so tightly his hands ached. There was warmth here. Softness here. That he didn’t deserve and stole anyway, greedy and covetous because that’s what monsters did. And he took it, held it close, let it soothe the aches and the agony he carried so deep in him it hurt to let free. </p><p>Sasha. </p><p>Tim. </p><p>Martin. </p><p>Jon woke to the smell of sea air and surf. </p><p>To the last of a thick fog clinging around his ankles. </p><p>To a mug of tea, still hot. </p><p>And a statement.</p>
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